Misjudged Games

[itsausernamewhatofit]

Operation Darkness was bashed by critics when it came out and has a 46/100 on Metacritic as a result. Personally I love the game and think everyone who wants to field a heavily armed military squad of British werewolfs and wizards against the full force of the Nazi government's secret vampire and zombie squadrons should check it out. I mean, unless that doesn't sound as exciting as shooting some foreigners in brown rooms for a couple hours.

 

[King of Asgaard]

Not that I trust IGN's scores mind you, but I was peeved when they gave Yakuza 4 a 6/10.
What jostled my flaps even more is that most other sites gave it an 8/10.
From what I vaguely recall, IGN's gripes were that the animations were recycled from 3, which is true, and that the game engine looked dated, which is also true. But were those two criticisms the entire reason for panning the game like they did? I don't think so.

 

[cjspyres]

Uh. Off the top of my head - Skyrim, Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age 2, Crysis 2, Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3. Massively overrated games.

Huh, I never really thought of Dragon Age 2 as being overrated. It was decent, and rated as such. I haven't seen anywhere that it's been extremely praised.

Well, for one thing, you haven't looked [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/8701-Dragon-Age-II-Review.2] far. And for another, I don't think saying it's decent is being fair as to how much of a shit-stain it is.

Compared to it's predecessor, yes. On it's own merits? I don't think so. Despite its flaws, the game was never unplayable for me. A solid 6 for me 6.5 maybe.

Edit: Also, it doesn't do you much good to assume I get all my reviews, or any for that matter, from Escapist. I judge a game based on its merits and my experience with it. Please try not to troll any longer.

 

[MatsVS]

Both Dragon Age 2 & Final Fantasy XII are massively underrated, I'd say. The games just failed to pander to their stupid fans' expectations, and thus there was a backlash. Wearying, really.

Mainly, though, I'd point to The Last Remnant. The game was sprawling, had great designs of characters, monsters, setting and items, a solid storyline, and a combat system with a surprising amount of depth for those who bothered looking for it. It's a true shame that it wasn't better received for I can not think of another 'new' franchise with greater potential.

 

[Skeggers]

The 2009 version of Bionic Commando. Such a fun game that was restricted by it's linearity and occasional unfair difficulty. Swinging mechanics were great though.

 

[cjspyres]

Both Dragon Age 2 & Final Fantasy XII are massively underrated, I'd say. The games just failed to pander to their stupid fans' expectations, and thus there was a backlash. Wearying, really.

Mainly, though, I'd point to The Last Remnant. The game was sprawling, had great designs of characters, monsters, setting and items, a solid storyline, and a combat system with a surprising amount of depth for those who bothered looking for it. It's a true shame that it wasn't better received for I can not think of another 'new' franchise with greater potential.

You sir, just sold me on this game. I was literally in Gamestop looking to pick up a new rpg I haven't played, when I spotted TLR. I didn't know enough about it, so I decided to wait until I knew more about it.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Anything made by Obsidian, people seem to think that Obsidian is some golden saint of gaming, but EVERY SINGLE TIME I play one of their games all I get is a buggy, poorly optimized, unfinished, broken mechanics out-the-ass, idiot cliche plots/character, games, that I really wouldn't have bought had it not been in the bargain bin.

I seriously wonder how
-They are in business still
-Companies still consider hiring them
-People can find their games good
Considering every one of their games is considered an inferior sequel to a MUCH better game.

I think people misjudge Obsidian games as being better then they actually are..... a lot.

 

[cjspyres]

Compared to it's predecessor, yes. On it's own merits? I don't think so. Despite its flaws, the game was never unplayable for me. A solid 6 for me 6.5 maybe.

Edit: Also, it doesn't do you much good to assume I get all my reviews, or any for that matter, from Escapist. I judge a game based on its merits and my experience with it. Please try not to troll any longer.

Well, I consider the original Dragon Age to be a 7 at best.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. What gave you the idea that I'm trolling? You said "I haven't seen anywhere that it's been extremely praised.", and I gave you an example, pointing out that this exists as a featured review on the very same website we're conversing on. Saying you haven't seen the game being "extremely praised" anywhere is either an embellishment, or ignorance.

I am very sorry, I misunderstood and thought you were telling me that I hadn't looked far enough to see a BAD review. Again, I humbly apologize. Honestly, I'd never read the Escapist review because I joined well after DA2 was released, and before that, I'd never heard of the site.

 

[cjspyres]

Anything made by Obsidian, people seem to think that Obsidian is some golden saint of gaming, but EVERY SINGLE TIME I play one of their games all I get is a buggy, poorly optimized, unfinished, broken mechanics out-the-ass, idiot cliche plots/character, games, that I really wouldn't have bought had it not been in the bargain bin.

I seriously wonder how
-They are in business still
-Companies still consider hiring them
-People can find their games good
Considering every one of their games is considered an inferior sequel to a MUCH better game.

I think people misjudge Obsidian games as being better then they actually are..... a lot.

As hypocritical as this sounds, I somewhat agree with you. While I do praise Alpha Protocol for what it did right, it still got a lot wrong (not enough for me to not enjoy it though). Also, while I do like some Obsidian games, I don't praise and worship them. For example: I like F:NV, but I like FO3 more. Same thing for KOTOR 1 and 2.

 

[MatsVS]

Both Dragon Age 2 & Final Fantasy XII are massively underrated, I'd say. The games just failed to pander to their stupid fans' expectations, and thus there was a backlash. Wearying, really.

Mainly, though, I'd point to The Last Remnant. The game was sprawling, had great designs of characters, monsters, setting and items, a solid storyline, and a combat system with a surprising amount of depth for those who bothered looking for it. It's a true shame that it wasn't better received for I can not think of another 'new' franchise with greater potential.

You sir, just sold me on this game. I was literally in Gamestop looking to pick up a new rpg I haven't played, when I spotted TLR. I didn't know enough about it, so I decided to wait until I knew more about it.

Awesome! Go for the PC version, though, as it has some extra bells and whistles. It's also on Steam if you prefer digital.

 

[Scarim Coral]

The game Gotcha Force got like 6/7 scores which I think it deserve at least an 8, Sure it had several flaws (repetitve gameplay, muppet voices and etc) but it was a hell of a fun game and the graphic on it were great for a Gamevube game.

 

[cjspyres]

I don't know why you'd get the idea that I was trying to say something that's exactly the opposite of what the paradigm of the conversation was at the time, but hey, no harm, no foul. You seriously did way too much apologizing right there.

Haha, I probably did, but I'd rather admit I made a mistake and genuinely apologize, rather than insist I was right.

The reason I threw a link to the Escapist review specifically is because that has been somewhat of an infamous review for this site, and a reason for quite a lot of people getting turned off from Escapist's reviews overall.

And while I am somewhat in the wrong for expecting you to know or care about it, ultimately, a statement like the one I had an objection to holds more water the more you hang out in threads related to DA2, and the better you know the overarching critical[footnote]In this case meaning from reviewers, because the reviewers are hardly ever actually critical of anything AAA.[/footnote] response to the game. Which in this case wasn't only "decent", but "good" or "really good" (an 8).

Understandable. And going through it, it IS quite ridiculous. Not a perfect game by ANY means. Can't say I've personally ever seen anything over a 7 though. It's a shame nowadays where people get paid to give a good review.

 

[MercurySteam]

Bioshock 2

Not exactly that it was misjudged or anything, I just felt that alot of critics high opinion of its predecessor led to alot of unfair criticism in my opinion.

Yeah, when I played through Bioshock 2 I could tell something just wasn't right. I couldn't tell what it was, but I just didn't like the game as much.

May have something to do with the fact it wasn't developed by the same team that made the original.

 

[ZedLeg]

I think Test Drive Unlimited 2 got unfairly reviewed. It had it's fair share of problems for sure, but it was actually a pretty good game.

The Need for Speed Shift games were unfairly judged too. They were given great reviews even though they were both pretty terrible. The same can be said for several other more recent NFS games.

I think the TDU 2 reviews I read were fair. It wasn't horrendous but it hadn't moved on from the first one and mechanically it was even more broken. I lost count of the amount of times I got stuck in scenery or fell through the floor before I gave up with it. Also the graphics weren't great and the handling was sloppy at best.

I agree with you about NFS Shift thought. I gave up after an hour of trying to make my first car drive properly. Hot Pursuit is good but I'm playing through the Run just now and it's borderline as to whether I'll bother finishing it.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

Bioshock.

The weapons are clunky, the Plasmids are a novelty at best, the RPG elements pretty much boil down to pausing your FPS game to play a quick round of "Poke'mon snap"

Don't get me wrong, it's a fun game but it's not like Prometheus defied the will of Zeus to deliver the gift Bioshock to humanity.

 

[Scrustle]

I think Test Drive Unlimited 2 got unfairly reviewed. It had it's fair share of problems for sure, but it was actually a pretty good game.

The Need for Speed Shift games were unfairly judged too. They were given great reviews even though they were both pretty terrible. The same can be said for several other more recent NFS games.

I think the TDU 2 reviews I read were fair. It wasn't horrendous but it hadn't moved on from the first one and mechanically it was even more broken. I lost count of the amount of times I got stuck in scenery or fell through the floor before I gave up with it. Also the graphics weren't great and the handling was sloppy at best.

I agree with you about NFS Shift thought. I gave up after an hour of trying to make my first car drive properly. Hot Pursuit is good but I'm playing through the Run just now and it's borderline as to whether I'll bother finishing it.

I thought TDU2 did quite a lot better than the first. I've never got stuck in geometry or anything. A couple of times I've hit a curb strangely and it threw me in to the air in flips and spins, but I think they patched that since it only happened when the game had just come out. I think the graphics are pretty good. The detail on the environments isn't amazing, but they are just so huge you can't really expect them to be amazing. I think they do their job pretty well though. The cars look great and the lighting is really awesome too. I don't think the handling feels "sloppy", it's more the opposite. To me it feels pretty rigid. It feels pretty simple too, but I still find it fun. It's way better than Shift anyway. I don't think I would say it's better than TDU1 since I spent far much more time and had much more fun on the first, but I think the second is better in several technical areas.

I personally didn't like Hot Pursuit. I found the handling in that to be pretty terrible. The game looks fantastic, but the turn in is so vague. There seems to be a delay between your control input and the car actually turning, and when it does turn there seems to be no predictability over how sharply your car turns. It seems completely random. Also the fact the world is so small is pretty irritating. I also really don't like the menu system on that game. I guess this is more of a personal taste thing but I hate how you have to wait ages after each race or when you unlock something for a hundred bloody splash screens to come up. Just get on with it! I also think the HUD in the menus is too busy a lot of the time.

I only played the demo for The Run, and that's all I needed of that game. The handling was just a joke. It had a similar problem as Hot Pursuit in that your control input doesn't seem to have any relation to what your car actually does. The cars felt completely floaty and unresponsive too. I felt like I wasn't even playing the game, it was just playing itself and I was just along for the ride.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Some people can't see past the whole "sex appeal" thing Bayonetta has going on and have to ruthlessly misjudge the game on that sole factor. Even though she stops being "attractive" about half an hour into the game because the rampant oversexualisation has made you sort of numb to it. She's just in-character at that point.

For once you can say she's "ironicly sexy" and actually mean it...

I think the scores are generally high, think IGN gave it an 8 or 9. Not that their scores mean shit all to me.

Oh and they didn't give Persona 4 a 10/10. It was an 8 I believe. They are dead to me.

Plus when are people going to stop giving scores altogether? For once Yahtzee's opinion that a complex opinion can't be translated into a mere number is 100% correct.

But then they won't have a shiny number to paste on the box... We can't have that now can we?

 

[The Harkinator]

I think Test Drive Unlimited 2 got unfairly reviewed. It had it's fair share of problems for sure, but it was actually a pretty good game.

The Need for Speed Shift games were unfairly judged too. They were given great reviews even though they were both pretty terrible. The same can be said for several other more recent NFS games.

I think the TDU 2 reviews I read were fair. It wasn't horrendous but it hadn't moved on from the first one and mechanically it was even more broken. I lost count of the amount of times I got stuck in scenery or fell through the floor before I gave up with it. Also the graphics weren't great and the handling was sloppy at best.

I agree with you about NFS Shift thought. I gave up after an hour of trying to make my first car drive properly. Hot Pursuit is good but I'm playing through the Run just now and it's borderline as to whether I'll bother finishing it.

But there is no unpredictability in TDU2. Racing games need to have that sense that everything happens differently each race, even if it the same drivers on the same course. The opponents in TDU2 follow pre determined routes along the race course and only deviate if you crash into them. They will happily drive along their route and run straight into you if you lie in their path, the AI does not react to the players actions i.e. if you brake for a corner the AI does not react and slow down or try to pass you, it keeps driving along the road until it slams into the back of you.

 

[Nightmare-Child]

I thought that every Halo game with the exception of 1, and Reach were seriously overrated. That put too much of a focus on the multiplayer, and didn't develop the single player enough.

 

[G32420NL]

FFXII has been pretty widely panned, when all it really did was make a few pacing mistakes and have a shit storyline. It was pretty awesome if you didn't take it too seriously and try to understand the storyline.

Panned? It's got a 92 on Metacritic. It's got 61 positive reviews and 3 mixed. It's even got a pretty high user score with 7.7.

I think Test Drive Unlimited 2 got unfairly reviewed. It had it's fair share of problems for sure, but it was actually a pretty good game.

The Need for Speed Shift games were unfairly judged too. They were given great reviews even though they were both pretty terrible. The same can be said for several other more recent NFS games.

I am a big fan of test drive unlimited but tdu 2 is pretty crap, i still play it because car collection games are rare on pc but the driving physics are screwed up, networking is a nightmare (taking a half hour to be able to find people that are actually in the same room, let alone start a race) and another thing, steeringwheel support sucks. in tdu 1 you had a functional clutch, starter button, nice ffb, steering ratio's that worked while cruising AND racing. now all the pedals are digital and my g25 feels floaty all over the place. stupid thing is: the last patch only made it worse.

I agree on the nfs side of things, main thing is that many people dont realise is that shift sort of a split off of the series. i love the latest nfs hot pursuit, i liked the run aswell, bit short though. the scenery alone gave me (positive) goosbumbs